Twenty Twenty's Surprise

Last January, I had some plans.

I spent New Year’s Day in a deep visioning process and had a notebook of exciting lists: travel, adventures with my girlfriend, several weddings, a self-care routine, updating my kitchen, and growing my business into a more sustainable model. A model I’d been thinking about for at least 7 years now.

I began the year clearer and better prepared than ever before.

I booked a CEU seminar in Chicago, bought plane tickets to Poland and put a deposit down for a trip to Peru.

And March arrived.

I had not seen it coming.

My in-person hands-on bodywork practice was suddenly shuttered - first by order from the governor and next by my own ethics and commitment to ‘do no harm’ as I watched the infection numbers rise, and with them, the global awareness of systemic inequalities.

2020’s political unrest and social justice outcrys motivated me to become a better interruptor of grind culture. Stopping and genuinely reassessing everything felt like the only right thing to do.

Compounding the loss of my business, my romantic relationship ended abruptly and I also made the difficult choice to leave a spiritual community that downplayed the seriousness of this pandemic. Loss upon loss.

It’s been a rough year.

For the world.

Each of us has been affected uniquely. Most of us agree, it has been a collective trauma.

Every day, I counted my blessings as I banged up against the walls of a cocoon of confusion, more isolated than I’d ever known.

I used to touch people for a living. Now I hardly saw anyone in person, and if I did, there were zero hugs.

If there is one thing I did, it was listen to my knowing. Daily, I’d check in for next steps along what felt like a mountain foot bridge, suspended by gossamer threads of early adopters and my own permission to reinvent, reimagine, and find my authentic way.

Many days, my instructions from that inner knowing was a single word -“trust.”

So I cultivated trust - and kept taking small steps across this high altitude rope bridge the business world calls a pivot.

By December, our collective weariness was palpable and a friend posted a question about ritualizing the end of the old year and greeting the new. I commented about my somewhat-annual journaling practice and, bracing myself for a good cry, I opened up that journal from January 1, 2020, to review my losses.

There had been no travel. There was no more girlfriend or retreats or business as I knew it.

I was glad to find I’d managed most of my house project, done a decent job with self-care, but what I found in my career goals really stopped me in my tracks.

It was just one short paragraph, boiling down to ‘work smarter, not harder’: get my jaw care offer online and finally start selling digital education on my website. And to co-teach again, with a biz buddy.

I had not looked at those words since that January day.

Seeing them again, mid December, after months of slow and steady, seemingly “nothing” work, after the waves of grief that are signature to this past year, and still feeling incomplete and insecure with my new footing … seeing those words again really opened my eyes.

Since March, I have been working more gently with my body; more with my brilliance. I invented a new modality: audio bodywork. I wrote, designed and launched my new website and went on to create several more websites for people I now get to call business coaching clients. From no mailing list or blog to speak of, I’ve now sent regular (-ly irregular) newsletters since September and this is my fourth blog post this year - and ever.

I’ve been aspiring to write a blog for so long, I found “blog posts” on a vision board I made for 2016.

I taught my Ease Your Jaw workshop online - twice - and now I serve new clients around the world. My Jaw Love book, along with its audio collection, is finally for sale on my website - meeting a major milestone to launch my e-commerce this year.

Those accomplishments are plenty to be very proud for a single year. But the biggest gem manifested most gradually, one Tuesday at a time, week after week, touching base, listening, sharing work, asking for accountability, listening, putting our wisdom and minds together... I cultivated a relationship with a business buddy that I’ve only dreamed of until now.

Like the star atop a Holiday Tree, my biz buddy, Stacey Pickering and I co-taught a beautiful Solstice Ceremony on the potent First Day of Winter, with Jupiter and Saturn in their Grand Conjunction and our planet in cosmic upgrade.

Our event rocked the stars. Co-teaching with Stacey had been my dream and we built ourselves into a shining force that night - live in front of 72 connections; many screens to family groups receiving our guidance and healing in their cozy homes.

Dreams come true.

Mine arrived in the pause from the grind.

What felt like a death, a jolt into inactivity, became the space I needed to build the online infrastructure I’d been fantasizing about for years. I’m now shining into 2021 with that glow that I know I can only grow from here.

So thank you for being here, for your part - for all of your 'yeses' - to one-on-one audio bodywork sessions, to business coaching and website creation, to group zoom classes and all of the little ways we've interacted in this new digital living age.

Dreams can still come true.

I'm here to support yours.

Onward!